Congress Is back At Work-- Republican Obstructionists Back To Their Old Tricks

Move along; nothing to see here

First thing yesterday afternoon, the House voted on HR 965, John Sarbanes' Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Watertrails Network Continuing Authorization Act, which made permanent, by a 311 to 107 vote, the authorization of appropriations for the network. The bill was hardly a partisan hot potato and, in fact, was co-sponsored on a bipartisan regional basis, conservative Congressmen Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), Mike Castle (R-DE), Frank Kratovil (Blue Dog-MD), Glenn Nye (Blue Dog-VA), Todd Platts (R-PA) and Robert Wittman (R-VA) joining nine progressive and moderate Democrats. In the end, every Democrat voted yes and they were joined by a healthy 65 Republicans, with 107 ritual obstructionists like Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Paul Ryan (R-WI), Steve King (R-IA), Mr and Mrs Mack (R- FL & CA), Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), sign waver Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Tom McClintock (R-CA), David Dreier (R-CA), the notorious racist Joe Wilson (R-SC), Ken Calvert (R-CA), and Mike Pence (R-IN) joining John Boehner, back from his summer taxpayer financed trip summer abroad in futile, pig-headed opposition.

Seven minutes before HR 965 passed it came much closer to being killed where the ritual obstructionists were able to must 194 votes to recommit (or kill) the legislation. In fact, every single Republican, including the co-sponsors, voted to kill the bill. (They were joined by 19 mostly right-wing Democrats who have a tendency to blindly vote with the GOP whenever anything looks contentious-- slimy Blue Dogs like Parker Griffith (AL), Bobby Bright (AL), Charlie Melancon (LA), Glenn Nye (VA), Heath Shuler (NC), Harry Mitchell (AZ), and Travis Childers (MS).

It was an especially awkward vote for Republicans representing the states with the most to gain from the Chesapeake Bay Network. Perhaps constituents of Eric Cantor (R-VA), Bob Goodlatte (VA), Frank Wolf (VA), Robert Whittman (VA), Roscoe Bartlett (MD), Todd Platts (PA) and Joe Pitts (PA), those who stand the most to lose if the project were to die, should ask their members of Congress who exactly they represent.

The Senate, of course, is also back and they took up a bill that was interrupted before the break when one of its principle sponsors, Nevada Republican John Ensign got tangled up in a messy sex-religion-fascism scandal everyone would rather forget ever happened. The bill is the very bipartisan Travel Promotion Act of 2009, since almost every state has something they want to promote for tourists (except Kentucky, Oklahoma and Kansas which, alas, have nothing to offer anyone).

Tuesday the Harry Reid introduced cloture to break through the ritual obstructionist filibuster from the cranks like Coburn, Burr and DeMint. Fed up with these America-Must-Fail crackpots, the Senate overwhelmingly slapped them down and cloture passed, 80-19, 21 Republican joining every single Democrat to basically tell the likes of Coburn, Burr and DeMint to stop obstructing the workings of the government for no damn reason other than their own hate-filled personal agenda of racism and failure. And the following day when the bill itself came up for a vote, it was pretty much the same 19 obstructionists-- with Corker and Chambliss trading places with Enzi and Barrasso-- voting against a bill whose intent is to promote American tourism. Presumably Arizona's two wingnut senators, McCain and Kyl, have just given up on tourism-- both voted "no"-- in the light of Arthur Frommer having warned tourists away from the Grand Canyon state because of gun violence, dangerous extremism and bigotry.